Quality of opsec should not be the criteria for right to pen name of any type. His first and middle name did not, until very recently, lead to his blog for many pages of Google searches. I know lots of people in vulnerable positions who enjoy similar obscurity protections.
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Replying to @zeynep @KirinDave and
I would argue it was never a pen name. He used his full name to publish in a journal as noted by
@ElSandifer. He blogged and was featured on rationalist blogs under his full name. His insistence that no one use his full name is relatively recent.1 reply 0 retweets 1 like -
Replying to @melissamcewen @KirinDave and
I've seen a lot of activists in vulnerable positions do just that; retreat from earlier public writings to a pen name, and it certainly helped them; friction is genuinely protective. One NYT article would utterly ruin it because now Google will pull it up.
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Replying to @zeynep @KirinDave and
Scott is white man with an MD not an activist and not in a vulnerable position though.
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Replying to @melissamcewen @zeynep and
The people who are vulnerable are his patients, who he regularly blogs about without their consent.
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Replying to @melissamcewen @KirinDave and
Things like pen names are not rights we should defend like that, though. None of us will like it if some big media company casually decides that for anyone. Now if there is a good reason to de-anonymize him or anyone else because of wrongdoing: different argument.
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Replying to @zeynep @melissamcewen and
I wrote about and defended de-anonymizing the reddit moderator who oversaw a "jailbait" and "creepshot" reddits which were terrible, harmful, indefensible. In this case, most of the arguments I've seen are.. he made it easy. That's not a reason. It should be on the merits.
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Replying to @zeynep @melissamcewen and
I think the ease is relevant too, however, because "de-anonymizing" implies that the anonymity was existent.
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Replying to @ElSandifer @melissamcewen and
Friction absolutely helps. Public and private are not binary just like the loon that shows up at your doorstep is not binary.
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Replying to @zeynep @melissamcewen and
Sure. But the amount of friction that currently exists is surely a significant factor in evaluating its reduction.
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Sloppy opsec doesn't deserve annihilating what friction does exist.
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